Hoff, Van Hoff offer write-in candidacy

Pair running on single-issue parking ticket platform

Published: Friday, February 14, 2003

Updated: Sunday, November 8, 2009 01:11

While less than three weeks remain until Student Government elections, two UND students and political veterans have expanded the field.

John Hoff, currently Law School Student Senator, and Melissa Van Hoff, a senior English and political science major, announced their candidacy in a guest column Hoff submitted to the Dakota Student earlier this week. In it, he argued that the other two campaigns have left parking tickets, which he believes should be a top priority, out of their platforms. To counteract this, Hoff and Van Hoff will campaign on the single-issue platform of parking tickets.

"The parking situation on this campus is a joke," Hoff said.

Hoff said that people vent to him frequently about UND's enforcement of parking. He said that the system is flawed, with an inadequate and inconvenient appeals process and unreasonable fees for tickets that are paid late.

"It's not about making the (parking) system more efficient," he said. " ... It's about sucking less money out of students."

"People care about getting nickel-and-dimed to death," he added. "That's what they care about."

Hoff and Van Hoff both admit that their election chances are slim, as time and resources devoted to campaigning will be minimal and they will rely on write-in votes on election day. However, winning election isn't necessarily their goal.

"When you run a lopsided campaign like this, there are certain things you try to achieve," Hoff said.

He said that his goal is to get five percent of the vote, or a number larger than the margin of victory. If that happens, he said, then the losing party could attribute their defeat to lack of attention to parking tickets.

"If you just get an idea out there it doesn't matter if you win sometimes," Hoff said. "Sometimes it takes shape. It happens."

But that doesn't mean Hoff and Van Hoff are discounting their chances. Though Van Hoff plans to graduate in May and is applying for a spot in the Peace Corps, she said that she would stay for another year should the campaign be successful. And Hoff has his own ideas of how Student Government should be run.

"I would immediately put my opponents in offices of power," he said of a potential victory.

"They're highly qualified people. Build bridges. Compromise."

Hoff and Van Hoff are not strangers to the political process. Hoff gained a reputation in the Grand Forks area when he was elected to, and later recalled from, the Grand Forks City Council. Van Hoff ran for the North Dakota State Legislature on the Democratic ticket in 2000.

Hoff said that the two will stick to their platform of "parking tickets and nothing else." He pointed to his record on the Grand Forks City Council, where he says his refusal to budge from his platform cost him his seat.

"I promised I'd talk about hemp," he said. "I did. I kept my promises."